CommandRESPONSE: An Open Source Instantiation of an Event-Driven and Services-Based Architecture for Net-Centric Warfare and Public Safety Applications

Todays navy warfighting and domestic public safety professionals must deal with information overload, new types of threats and complex fields of engagement while attempting to achieve a shared situational awareness and make critical decisions under a high degree of uncertainty. The current information systems supporting these efforts were designed to accomplish singular functions with each system requiring its own information management and processing infrastructure. These systems are difficult to adapt or enhance and limited horizontal integration of information amongst the systems exists. Stove piped systems result in making the creation of a common operational picture of the point-of-problem difficult at best. Moreover, the organizations procuring such solutions pay for that infrastructure many times over. The nature of an asymetric threat can change overnight. Warfighting and public safety systems designed to address such threats must themselves be flexible and capable of rapidly adapting to new threat scenarios. This dynamic, combined with the economic drivers to reduce total cost of ownership, operation and manning, has driven the adoption of net-centric technologies and architectures that facilitate the composability of mission capabilities and associated information environments while substituting networks, sensors and intelligence for manpower. New mission capabilities must be constructed on-the-fly. Jointcoalitionmilitary-civiliancombined operations place further burdens on information sharing, the decision making process and distribution of command intent. First responders and military warfighters both need information management and interchange that supports secure, tailorable and timely access to all required information for realtime planning, resource allocation, control, and execution of the incident response mission.